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Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Book Review: Around The Corner Crochet Borders

Generally, I'm a big fan of free patterns, so I currently own only 1 crochet book and 1 knitting book (both for amigurumi plushies). Nevertheless,when I was creating Dexter's first crochet afghan, I found it difficult to find a nice-looking, non-girly border. Ravelry member Shenandoah suggested using border #88 from Around the Corner Crochet Borders by Edie Eckman. Hmm, I don't want to buy a 300+ page just to check out a pattern. Luckily, I found a preview page of border #88 online and felt confident about replicating the chart.

Turns out there was missing text on this page that would have helped a lot...

Unfortunately my version of the pattern turned out looking like a granny square rather than the neat, almost-circular clusters in Shenandoah's picture. So I tried to compensate by crocheting down to 2 rows below to eliminate the granny square-like holes, but it definitely didn't have the cute appearance that originally drew me to it. :(

My crumpled version vs. the correctly completed border #88

This would have been the end of the story, except my sister-in-law saw Dexter's blanket and totally wanted one for her son. Since she's a huge fan of the Denver Broncos, I of course had to use their iconic navy blue, orange, and white. However, when it came time to complete the border, I decided to check out the aforementioned book from the library to see what all the hubbub was about.

I can honestly say I'm incredibly impressed! The paperback reference book comes with 150 colorful patterns and accompanying charts. I actually learned a few nifty tricks – such as making chainless starts to join new yarn and crocheting borders on woven fabric – in the tutorial section at the beginning. My sister-in-law flipped through the book and ended up choosing the fairly simple border #26, which is just a couple rounds of herringbone dc finished by a round of reverse sc, but I think it turned out pretty well. I definitely plan to add Ms. Eckman's book to my Christmas wish list this year. :)